Technical

I’m often asked if I use watercolours for my illustrations. I do all my illustrations on the computer - they are completely digital. You can view my 8-Step Illustration process here. I definitely try to make my illustrations look like watercolours (my favorite medium) but it’s all through the magic of Photoshop!

This is a quick 4-step tutorial to show you how to finish off an illustration and truly make it look like a scanned-in piece of artwork. This is just a taste of the things you can do with Photoshop filters. I plan to write more similar tutorials to help you in your exploration of digital art. This tutorial has been written for someone who is somewhat familiar with Photoshop. If it’s too complicated or you need further explanation on how to do a step, please let me know!

STEP 1 - OPEN YOUR IMAGE
Open the image you’d like to transform into a watercolour painting. (NOTE: Make sure your image is NOT part of the background. It should be on its own layer. If it is part of the background, double click on the layer and click ‘ok’ to take it off of the background.) Make a duplicate of this layer (you now have 2 layers of your image).

STEP 2 - WATERCOLOUR FILTER
Select your duplicate layer. Go to Filter -> Artistic -> Watercolour
(Use the following inputs: Brush Detail: 14, Shadow Intensity: 0, Texture: 3)

STEP 3 - LAYER OPTIONS
Change your layer mode to Hard Light and change your layer opacity to 35%.
Merge your layer down with your first layer (now you’re back to 1 layer)
Select your layer. Go to Filter -> Texture -> Texturizer
(Use the following inputs: Scale: 120%, Relief: 2)

STEP 4 - 3D EFFECT
Select your layer, rotate it slightly and add a faint drop shadow for a 3D paper effect. To add a drop shadow, you must double click on your layer to bring up the Layer Styles. Choose ‘Drop Shadow‘ and customize the drop shadow to your liking!

And VOILA! Was this tutorial helpful? Too hard or too easy? I’d love to hear your feedback! :o)

Haha, ok sorry for the dramatic headline… but this is pretty cool stuff!

I want to give you a brief overview of RSS and how it can transform the way you read your favorite blogs! You may have visited my site and noticed the RSS icon located in the top left. You may have also noticed a similar icon on other blogs you visit (often to the right of the browser’s URL field). RSS allows you to read all your favorite blogs from one place. The RSS Reader will check each of you favorite blogs (approx. every 30min) and will update your reader with all the new posts from your favorite blogs- without you having to lift a finger!

I’ve illustrated a diagram below that explains how the setup will work:

The first thing you’ll need to do to take advantage of RSS, is to set up an account with an RSS Reader. I use Google Reader. There are several other online RSS readers, as well as desktop programs that you can use. After setting up an account, you’ll need to visit your favorite blogs and click on the RSS icon. Once you click on the icon, you’ll be able to add that blog to your reader and voila!

Now you only have to check your reader for updates from your favorite blogs - you only have one place to visit instead of many! I still like to visit blogs directly, but having Google Reader allows me to stay up to date with so many more blogs than I’d be able to without it! I’ve subscribed to over 200 blogs, and it would be way too difficult to access them each individually everyday. Google Reader immediately shows me which ones have been updated and I can read them all right there - a life changing program if you ask me! :)

For an excellent explanation of RSS and how it works, you can also visit this link.